In-Between

The Sideways Series #5

by D.R. Swan

My bed shook. I turned startled to see the back of a nude woman sitting on it with her legs over the edge. “Lauren?” I said questioningly, gazing at the familiar contours of my late wife. “Where’s your nightgown?” “I was hot,” she said, still not facing me. “Oh… Wait. How can you be here?” “I’m always here for you, Dennis,” she said turning and smiling, and I thought she was lovely. I slid over to touch her, my body full of need, but she shook her head no. “But it’s been so long… I miss you,” I said not understanding why she wouldn’t touch me. She stood and began to walk away, and I watched seeing her long brown hair sway against her back. “No. Don’t go… Wait,” I pleaded desperately. She turned back to me, and everything went into slow motion. Her hair swayed like she was under still water. My eyes traveled up and down her familiar nude form. “Lauren?” I said again, recognizing her lines and edges, but those weren’t her eyes. No white shone, and the soft light brown of her irises were black and made her sockets look empty. Fear shot through me. Knowing that she had my full attention, she began to speak in a haunting voice that I barely recognized as hers. “There’s a storm coming, and you need to be ready.” She turned from me and walked into the bathroom of the house we shared before her death. “No! Don’t go,” I pleaded… I woke to an empty room. In the fifth book in the Sideways Series, Dennis Olsen discovers precisely what the dream of the coming storm was foretelling. Our world balances precariously on a precipice with the constant need for everything to go exactly right. If one essential piece is removed, the dominoes begin to fall. Dennis, Shannon Hunter, Dennis’ son, Bryan, and a small group of twelve are forced to run from two worldwide emanate disasters, the first, the escape of a weaponized virus from a secret Russian facility, and the second, an unseen invasion from a parallel dimension which causes the complete loss of power generated by electric utilities. The ensuing chaos brings down each country of our world, one by one, until there is little left but quiet. While the virus takes most who are exposed, some have a strong enough immune system to defeat the super bug, but not all those who survive are to be trusted.

257 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 3, 2016